The next time i meet someone who can't pronounce my name, wherever that may be, i can just tell them that my name is the past-simple form of (to) draw. i know enough about the english language to say that now. and presumably, this is the reason why i was named drew in the first place, to make it easier to say for the good people of Bratislava, Slovakia.
but it hasn't all been fun and grammar here at the TEFL institute in corinth. i have time to write this because i've finished my last essay. this is a long post but i'm totally going somewhere with this (but only in my own fucked head) JUST SKIM EACH PARAGRAPH FOR THE MAIN IDEA AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS BELOW, REMEMBER TO WRITE IN SENTENCES AND USE YOUR NEW VOCABULARY CAPSLOCK = COOL
let me go on a little tangent here first. SOMEONE UPDATE THE TEFL BLACKLIST PLZ, it hasn't been updated in 2 years. it hasn't been updated in 2 years. it hasn't been updated in 2 years. do you know how long it's been since it's been updated? well, actually i happen to know and i can tell you, it hasn't been updated in 2 years.
"it hasn't been updated in 2 years"
is a negative sentence in the present perfect tense, i can't deny that i learned lots of shit here...but i also can't deny that this is a (mostly) bullshit operation. now part of me doesn't really care too much, because in 2 days i'll have a TEFL certificate, no matter what. so what's the problem? well there's a few i can think of
***THERE'S 2 TEACHER TRAINERS WHO WORK HERE WHO HAVE BEEN TOTALLY AWESOME AND HELPFUL THE WHOLE TIME, AND NONE OF THIS IS DIRECTED AT THEM, THEY'RE THE BEST PEOPLE HERE***
acommodation: i sleep in a living room with 2 other people, decently cool guys for sure, but i dont never have no privacy, hey why was i told that there would be a single room for me? the hot water cut out on us for 5 days, and at 250 euros for the month, those 5 days i had the second most expensive cold showers ive ever had in my life. the cold shower i won at the annual cold shower silent auction in Busan SK was slightly more expensive. there's 3 girls living in the flat too, which means 6 people using the one bathroom in a flat meant for 3 or so people. don't forget, in greece, you can't flush toilet paper, you have to put your shitty shit paper in the trashcan. well with 6 people doing this, our bathroom smells like something wonderful, man. did you know that girls poop too? i didn't believe it at first either. i can only imagine that it's better than the situation at the main trainee house, with 9 people, 1 bathroom. must be pretty hard to get a shower in the morning over there? and bedbugs. we literally have bedbugs? something bites at night, having screens on the doors, which we have to leave open to avoid burning alive, might help. not having the internet we were promised is quite annoying as well. and the response from our TEFL hosts to all these complaints is either 'it's greece, get used to it' or 'you're not in a 5star hotel.' i won't even get in to the dead dog in our dumpster incident
goddammit, this post is too long
job placement: if you don't intend to help any of the people who pay for your course get jobs, you shouldn't claim 8 out of 10 students get jobs. now i understand that no agency should guarantee a job for plenty of reasons, but there's more to the story! ok, TEFL in greece, lots of people on this course want to get into it, and lucky for them, there's TEFL opportunities here! great! but...it's 80% or more of the TEFL jobs in Greece are through Anglo-Hellenic Teacher Recruitment....which is the company run by the guy running this course and his wife. now you'd probably think, 'if your teacher is the guy who controls all the jobs, shouldnt it be easy to get jobs?' surprisingly enough, the answer is no, because this guy is somewhat ofa shitfucker, as well as (i.m.o.) an alcoholic and a womanizer, and about to be sued, more on that later. anyways his wife makes no secret of her opinion about americans, i believe it was one of the first nights all the trainees were together when she enlightened us to the fact that "AMERICANS ARE SO STUPID" because "YOU NEVER THINK!" what? what do we never think about? i think about lots of shit, every day. like when i decide which black t-shirt to wear, that's thinking. there are neuroblaster things exploding in my head while i'm deciding which black t-shirt is the least filthy. see? i even know how the brain works.
now in just one short year of being in a foreign country, plus my trip to thailand, plus being here in greece, i've met a fair amount of people from other english speaking countries, and if any of them had this attitude about americans, none of them, not one, ever expressed it like that. most of them don't have an opinion about you at all, until they get to know you, which is how normal people operate. sure, everyone has shit to say about our government, but most realize pretty quickly that railing on our government to me isn't going to change anything. i'm not gonna whip out my cellphone and call the president. "hey you know how we have a problem with _______? well this person at the bar totally knows what we should do. lemme put them on" her diatribe about our lack of brain power is only the tip of the iceberg, annd well it's a pretty immature mindset for a well-travelled person in middle age i.m.o. although i guess my dad thinks the same shit about other countries, so there you go, you can still be immature over the age of 60.
if you've read this far, isn't their something more worthwhile you could be doing?
i have been guilty of this too, but quickly updated my worldview after meeting people from not-america. most best example: not all canadians say "eh?" all the time. only people from rural canadia do that. but TEFL corinth has been in operation FOR 4 FUCKING YEARS! in all that time i refuse to believe that there hasnt been ONE fucking person from america who wasnt a fat , loudmouthed, stupid alcoholic! why am i railing on this woman so much? SHE IS THE PERSON WHO DECIDES IF YOU GET A JOB IN GREECE OR NOT. remember i said that almost all the greek jobs are through anglo-hellenic teacher recruitment? anglo-hellenic is just a psuedonym for her. she'll take your resume (everyone else in the world calls it a CV) and say she'll send it to the schools, then she will go upstairs (they live on the 2nd floor of the main trainee house) and dice your CV, using it to complete her
horiatiki zalata, the hope-sauce that oozes out of the paper makes it taste better. she makes it a point to be unavailable all the time, always assuring people that she can meet them the next day, then making an excuse at that time too. one of my roommates (god i hate typing that, but he's alright) was trying to meet with her almost every day since the 2nd week of the class, but she kept blowing him off and told him to send an email, which he did, then she said he was sending too many emails! he sen't one email. she keeps ranting about how greek companies don't want to hire americans, because they don't have an EU passport. now this i can understand, it would be much more complex for an american to legally work in the EU than a brit, but i REFUSE to believe that it's impossible. and goddamn i feel lucky that i don't have any desire to work in EU. i would be well and truly pissed off if that were the case.
if you've read THIS far there's something wrong with you
in 4 weeks, she has only brought one potential job to one person, then she said, 'tell me about your life.' well thats a dumb question with lots of different answers, but this girl answered the best she could, after which the offer was retracted, because she wasn't ecologically minded enough or something? i didn't exactly understand. no one did. she plays favorites so if she doesn't like you, you better not dare to even think about getting a job in this country. she even ratfucked the roommate i mentioned before, when he called a place in athens asking about a job ad in the english newspaper, they told him to come to an interview. SOMEHOW (?) she found out and they contacted him to let him know that they'd talked to her (!!) and that he didn't need to come to that interview because he would have to work illegally?? they knew he was american when he called them the first time!
if being american is the reason she is so unhelpful about helping people with the job search, then even my dog, who has little understanding of human ways, would be disappointed. in fact when she finishes reading this, she'll probly do that thing where she covers her eyes with her paws. the most CONDEMNING thing was that a couple days ago, anglo-hellenic (heh) posted that they have 80 jobs available in greece! WTF?! i salute the people on this course who have seen what's what and are taking the job situation into their own hands. best of luck to you.
i better clarify my earlier accusations against our teacher though. he's come into class tipsy on more than one occasion, but i suppose we should forgive him that because it's the greek way (he's british though) and we all do this too on fridays, so i can't hold that against him. on the 2nd day of class he rubbed a girls upper thigh in a meaningful way, which started a major shitshow as you can no doubt imagine. one of the people on this course, an EU citizen living in athens, is considering suing for false advertisement...we'll see how that one works out, i don't know. i wont get involved.
ok, you should REALLY stop reading this now
interstingly enough, if you look on the
FUCKING TEFL BLACKLIST multiple people are voicing the same complaints FROM 2 FUCKING YEARS AGO, WHOOPS GUESS I SHOULD'VE CHECKED THAT BEFORE I PAID 900 EUROS AND YES I GUESS THAT MAKES ME ANOTHER STUPID
AMERICAN WHO DOESNT THINK!ok, capslock is hurting my eyes, enough of that. after reading my graduate school thesis here, you might be surprised to know that i don't feel like i was robbed of 900 euros. why? because, thanks mostly to the 2 teacher trainers i briefly mentioned before, i did learn a lot of stuff here. about grammar, about how to teach more better good, all things i need to know. i'll be a helluva lot more confident walking into that next job, thanks to them. and i'll have a certificate too.
when i first came here to korinthoss, i felt like i was on a contest reality show like project gay, america's next top frat mattress and top chef. top chef was alright i guess, seein as how i like food and whatnot. well how bout a show about 15 people living together training to be TEFL teachers? there were competing personalities, and some dramaz, and some people were so defensive about their actions in the classroom you would've thought they were trying to protect their baby from you or something but this group has come together somewhat, because many people feel theyre being shit on to an equal extent. and you know what they say, if someone's shitting on you....well then you better move outta the way! rofl rofl i bet you were hoping i'd say something smart weren't you?
if youve made it to this point without falling asleep or dying, you deserve a drink, so go ahead, treat yourself and don't feel bad bout it. typing this took an entire hour of time that i should've used to study for the final TEFL test tomorrow. but even after realizing that, i still dont want to study for it, so i'm gonna go see what it's like to nail my dick to the floor.
--guy who writes this
my karma ran over your dogma
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